Voto esperto : a tool to help Brazilians to elect who they actually feel represented by, promoting political knowledge, engagement, and reasoning

This project started with these simple questions: Why the political scenario in Brazil is how it is? Why people don’t do anything about it? And how can design help? From a macro understanding of the political scenario and the points that could be addressed with a solution, the vote was chosen as a key aspect to be addressed. Why? It’s already an obligation for all Brazilian citizens, it’s the minimum effort of political participation, and it’s what is in control of the population. So why not make a better use of the power we already have? To understand the dimension of the issues around voting, three main dives where necessary: understanding the Brazilian political and electoral scenario, understanding the mindset of the people and their reluctance towards the issue, and understanding the efforts that have been made from the bottom-up, either in the form of manifestations or web services. From this research, I was able to define three main challenges for this project: • How to provide information, since the elections present so many parties and politicians, and so little useful information? • How to rouse interest, since people are so deeply rooted in their beliefs that there is no more faith in politics or politicians? • How to keep people politically active, since politics demands constant updating? From these challenges, a second research was structured to find out how to provide a solution, and it was divided in researching with users and researching tools. From users I could understand how people feel and think, which is their criteria, and what they need to be taught or informed about. From the tools, I saw ways of providing what people demanded in a real PSS solution. The development process led to an assertive solution, which works in the three steps that involve a choice making: learning, choosing and understanding the consequences. For teaching and unblocking the misbelief: the gamification; For helping on choosing: standardized information and logical process. And for the comprehension of the consequences, a proper following of the work politicians elected are doing. All features where based on what people actually want to know or judge important. The result is a user-centered design tool that helps people to approach the issue of politicians and voting in an invitee way, helping them to decide with property on whom best represent them.